TIPS FOR SELLERS
Home improvements to increase value
There are two reasons for pursuing home improvement projects:
- Just Want To Do It: You want some new features in a home to improve your family’s quality of life, but you don’t want to leave your current home
- Really Need To Do It: You want to make your home more marketable to maximize return (or minimize loss) and speed up the sale process.
In the right market conditions, a project might fit into both categories. Other times, though, the two approaches will conflict.
Just Want To Do It:
In situation 1, the project is perceived as a necessary or worthwhile improvement to your family’s lifestyle. Let’s say you want to build a pool in your backyard. We recommend checking in with a real estate professional first, just to make sure you fully understand that adding the pool might actually lessen the property’s value and make it more difficult to sell should you later decide to move. That’s the reality in many markets. That doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t do it, especially if you’re planning to live in the home for the rest of your life. It just means it’s worth knowing the cost and salability impacts at the front end.
Really Need To Do It:
The situation 2 home improvement project is pursued primarily to increase the property’s salability In turn, this often increases your return on investment. A good real estate agent can advise you of possible improvements, like painting, replacing carpets, or trimming overgrown landscaping, that will attract more potential buyers and also pay for themselves either through increasing the home’s value or through shortening the time it takes to sell the home.
